Another victory in court for cell subscribers

A while back, we posted about an appeals hearing that ruled the “mandatory arbitration” clause in cell phone contracts “unconscionable” and “unenforceable.” It was a victory for consumers everywhere, since class action suits win significantly more than arbitration cases — which rule in favor of the customer less than two percent of the time. Still, there are plenty of issues in customer contracts that still don’t pass muster. For instance, what about the clause that makes it acceptable for the company to change terms and conditions just by making a post on their website? Yeah, that’s a fair one. Thankfully, it’s under fire.

California consumer laws — boy do we appreciate them — might have your back on this one. The state’s 9th Circuit recently ruled on the terms issue:

“Parties to a contract have no obligation to check the terms on a periodic basis to learn whether they have been changed by the other side. This is the first time any federal court of appeals has considered whether to force a modified contract with a customer where the customer claims that the only notice of the changed terms consisted of posting the revised contract on the provider’s website. This issue is also of some significance, as it potentially affects the relationship of numerous service providers with millions of customers, and thus deserves immediate resolution.”

We’re a big fan of RSS feeds, but we definitely don’t want to add the terms page of our cell phone company to our already too large list. If a company changes its terms and conditions, it should have the obligation to send notice to all subscribers, preferably by snail mail, though e-mail would at least be a good start.

This isn’t a universal victory — yet. California consumer laws are tops in the country, so it might take a while for the idea to spread. At this point, though, we’ll take any victory against the big telecoms. Hopefully, this leads to a case regarding locked phones.

[InfoWorld]

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